Is Your Area High Risk?

Will your area be hard hit if crisis occurs? Will it be hard or easy to shelter in place (to stay in your current location) if everything spirals downward?

Urban

While there is no one measure, the general consensus is that the higher the population the worse the problem. Disease and contamination spread quickly in areas where people are in close proximity. The vast majority of cities cannot grow enough food to sustain their people. Last, but not least, if the sewage system takes a dive in the urban environment there is just not enough safe space to divert it to. One of the first complaints that started to surface in parts of New York without infrastructure for several days was the lack of working toilets and how occupants of residential buildings were using the hallway instead. Disaster can get messy, and more disastrous, fast. Unsanitary conditions can easily lead to the spread of disease. It is just easier to deal with outside of the urban areas where there is more space and there are more resources per person.

Industrial

How is that nice quiet nuclear power plant down the road? What about the paper mill that uses chlorine gases? Industry can work seamlessly for years with only minor problems and accidents that barely make the local paper. They work because the people there work. But what if the people cannot (or do not want to) get to work? Most of our industrial facilities require at least a skeleton crew to keep them from becoming giant environmental disasters. Can you get out of the area fast enough if you have to? Do you think the current warning system will work if it is unmanned?

Traffic

Assuming that the roads do not get blocked, if an evacuation was required how many hours of traffic would you be stuck in before reaching a safe distance? During hurricane Katrina traffic from Louisiana up through the first 150 miles of Mississippi going north was bumper to bumper and moving at less than 5 miles an hour the entire way (that is when it was moving at all). Mississippi isn’t even that populated.

Other risks

flood zones

high poverty areas with low food production

areas with strict gun control laws (only the looters will armed)

current crime rates

military bases (targets during war)

tornado/hurricane areas

active fault lines

remote areas if you are not prepared to be cut off from the world

hospital zones during outbreaks

low population of prepared neighbors

Some of these places can be wonderful places to live. Just be aware of their shortcomings and act proactively if you notice the resource plug being pulled from an area that cannot survive without it.